Any sport that wants to crack the Olympic shell must pass these two tests:

1) People must want to watch it, which means it must have a visual appeal
and must work on television. (Unfortunately, soaring might be the least
direct and television-friendly sport I can think of.)

2) It must demonstrate the above by successful participation in the
International World Games Association (IWGA), a collection of 30-odd Olympic
wanna-bes that have their games every 4 years, one year after the Olympic
games. (Think of the IWGA as the Olympic "farm system".) The 2005 IWGA will
be in Duisburg, Germany.

The IOC alway visits the IWGA to select which, if any, of the IWGA's sports
might be suitable for inclusion as demonstration sports at the next
Olympics.

If a sport manages to get selected as an Olympic demonstration sport, it
must then pass the test of succeeding in an actual Games. Good weather will
not be enough for soaring -- see (1) above. Like it or not, the Games are
about revenue, period.

The FAI has been working hard since the mid 1980s to get one of its
airsports into the Olympics. (Remember the "rings" freefall formation over
the opening ceremonies at the 1988 games.) Parachuting (4-way Formation
Skydiving and Accuracy Landing) has been an IWGA participant since Finland's
1997 games, and was the largest spectator ticket seller at the 2001 games in
Akita, Japan. (The Accuracy Landing event is very popular with spectators.)

Alas, the IOC elected not to include parachuting in the 2008 Beijing games,
so the FAI will be without a representative for at least 8 more years.

Interestingly, the 2005 IWGA will feature "Air sports: parachuting, gliding,
free flight (hang gliding, paragliding)". It might be worth a visit to the
FAI and IGC web sites to what form "gliding" will take at Duisburg. I'm
certainly looking forward to watching the results up close -- I'll be there
to support the parachuting events, but will be following the other air
sports closely.

More can be found at the IWGA web site: http://www.worldgames-iwga.org

-ted w.
"2NO"



"iPilot" wrote in message
...
It's been under discussion for several times, but I want to bring it up
again.

There have been several pro's and con's towards soaring in Olympics, but
nobody argues that it'd
rise the popularity of the sport. So it is important for soaring
community. Therefore my question is
following:

Wich way is soaring worse than sailing?

None of the cities that have organised Olympic games in the past would
have any geographic troubles
on organising soaring competitions (Moscow had troubles with organising
sailing competition which
had to be held in Tallinn - 900 km away).
None of the latest summer games that I remember have had such miserable
weather that the competition
would have to be left unheld.

The main argument against soaring is the fact that equipment can make a
difference here. Well. Here
is the challenge for igc. They have to face that their first trial of
monoclass failed and they have
to try again. This time with relatively high-performing, yet still not
expencive standard or 15m
class design.

As a matter of fact I don't believe that sailing deserves to have 9
different classes on Olympics
and soaring none. I personally think that FAI has failed bigtime to find
the concensus amongst all
air sports to get air sports represented on Olympic games. It shall be the
biggest argument towards
Olympic Commety - there's no air sports in Olympics nowadays. And the most
suitable sport would be
soaring because it's competitive, not so dependent on equipment and
directly measurable. Making
soaring TV-friendly shall not be a problem as well today. And with racing
tasks only allowed on
olympics it shall be understandable for general public as well.

How can we do it?

Regards,
Kaido